Upon the report’s withdrawal, ESCWA’s Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, Rima Khalaf, tendered her resignation.

The report, Israel Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid, is 74-pages long and hold two annexes. It is a scientific investigative report based on the international legal definition of the crime of Apartheid, and is corroborated with evidence showing “Israel’s” policies and its practices towards the Palestinian people as a whole.

The report’s importance lies in the fact that it followed Israeli practices towards Palestinians in 1967 territories, as well as refugees in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq.

The report shows that “Israel” has adopted a policy of dividing the Palestinian people as a strategic tool to consecrate the domination of the Jewish race against the Palestinian people as a whole.

The UN’s report is based on the definition of apartheid, and compares this definition to “Israel’s” policies and whether it applies to them, concluding that evidence shows that “Israel has established an apartheid system in Palestine.”

The Secretary General of the International Federation of Human Rights, and General Director of al-Haq organization, Shawan Jabarin, said that “the report has placed the Israeli occupation on a new level in international law, because the concept of the occupation is longer confined to international humanitarian law, which puts the state of occupation in order, nor to human rights in general, but has taken it to another level in terms of government commitment. Governments are obliged, in case of an apartheid system, to interfere to end this regime by taking all kinds of step and procedures, either collectively or individually, to end this apartheid system under the UN accord on ending apartheid. That’s why the report added new commitments before the international community, which would force them to take practical steps to end the status quo.

He also clarified that “Israel’s” portrayal in a formal report from a formal UN institution, as an apartheid state, forces on the UN and all countries the responsibility to act against this racist system. That’s why “Israel finds the report dangerous”, he said.

Jabarin also continued “the report’s withdrawal does not mean that it has lost its legal value, but only its official value as a UN document which can be acted upon by the UN General Assembly. However, the report can still be posed in front of the general assembly by friendly states, which could again lead to the report gaining official status by the UN.”

As for how the report can be used to pursue “Israel” in the private courts of the accord’s signatory countries and in the International Criminal Court, Jabarin said that “efforts are now being expended to try ‘Israel’ for the crime of apartheid, and this report is an important document that can be used to show that apartheid is being practices against Palestinians. As for private courts, that still needs more study, because many countries are expert in apartheid crimes.”

He also declared that the report’s withdrawal was by resorting to procedural, bureaucratic methods in the publishing process, claiming that “it failed to follow the correct procedure before publication,” stressing that it was not withdrawn because of its content.

Rabih Bashour, the report’s coordinator, said in a statement to Lebanese daily “Annahar”, that the 18 “ESCWA” member countries, asked for the report to be prepared in June 2015, and that’s why “we contacted Princeton Professor of International Law in New Jersey, Richard Falk, and Virginia Tilley, Professor of Political Science at Southern Illinois University, for the job, and the report was accomplished.”

On the consequences, Bashour said that “it established a precedent that allows member countries to submit the report before the International Criminal Court, and one of the report’s recommendations is that countries do so.”

“Racial segregation” is considered one of the gravest crimes towards man in international law, and there is a special accord to fight the crimes of racial segregation and genocide in order to hold the countries guilty of these crimes accountable.

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